Who Doesn't Love a Sale???

Pssst....Hold off on those TPT purchases for just a little while longer! Your patience will pay off! Their huge sale is being held Aug 4-5. My store will be 20% off and many other sellers will be offering great deals as well. With all the money you save, you can buy a few more bottles of glitter glue, Diet Coke, or hand sanitizer (you'll thank me later for the ideas).

So...are you ready for tip #2 in our efforts to get and stay organized? 

 (Sorry the picture is dark! Still working on camera skills!)

I got this idea from my partner teacher Sandi Hoon. These cardboard boxes (also called magazine holders) marked with days of the week are perfect for sorting worksheets, mail, and any other papers you will need for each day. As soon as you make your copies, put them in the right box. If you don’t get to them, just move them to the next day’s box. 

A bonus tip is to leave extra copies in the correct day’s box.  That way, when a student returns after being absent, you’ll have their make up work at your fingertips!

This REALLY comes in handy when you have to call in sick and have your plan book at home with you! At least your sub will have the resources they need to get through the day while you sip on hot tea and chicken soup.

Don’t forget to comment with your great ideas also!

                     Meenal    

Organizing and staying organized in your classroom

As the end of July draws near, our thoughts turn to back to school sales, Teachers Pay Teachers, laminating, bulletin boards, and all those other tasks that if done now, will make our teaching lives easier in the year to come. My main goal every summer is to get my classroom perfectly organized. And I start a new school year in fairly good shape.

But although I start out by having all my ducks in a row and everything labeled and in its place, barely a week goes by when I look around at my classroom and disarray and wonder what happened!

Although there are many blog posts out there about getting organized, I have not found many that focus on staying organized.

After teaching for 15 years, I have found a few things that have helped me keep my sanity and keep my organization within working parameters. I'd like to share a few of these with you over the next few days. Please share your ideas as well in the comments. Over the years, I've learned more by collaborating with others than any other way.

TIP #1:

Assign each student a number. I try to do these alphabetically but you know how that goes…the minute you get it all done, a new kid moves in that should be #15 alphabetically, but will now have to settle for #22. However, if you can still the OCD demons, this system makes handing back papers and recording grades SO much easier.

This little song helps them remember to put their dang names and or numbers on their papers. I did the poem/song both ways.

Click on the link below to grab your FREE copy at my TPT store!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Name-on-Paper-Song-1354800

  

             

That’s it for this post! Be back soon with another handy tip!

        Meenal

Thank you for your patience!

We're baaaack!
Hi! Sorry for the incredible delay in posting! Life just got in the way. 
But with all the snow days we've had lately, I feel like we're a bit ahead of the game, for once. So I managed to create a new file for the Chinese New Year to post in our store at TeachersPayTeachers. Unfortunately, uploading it didn't work for some reason. So I went onto TeachersNotebook and signed up for a store there. And the upload worked! Too bad it's a day late! Oh well, maybe someone can use it for next year! 
I went ahead and tried it out with my class yesterday. They were absolutely THRILLED to get a little red lucky envelope sealed with an Asian stamp with a fortune tucked inside. You would have thought I had handed them an envelope filled with money! 
They giggled as they read their fortunes. And I heard oohs and ahs as they claimed their fortunes came true. The little girl who got "You will smile at someone" giggled as another boy pointed out to her that she was always smiling so it obviously had to be true. A boy who got one that said "You will take 100 steps or more today" opened his eyes wide in amazement as he claimed that he never thought he did that much walking in one day!
I have 22 students and had 33 fortunes. So I read all the leftover ones aloud at the end. They were all pointing out that these were all true for me (especially the one that said I would be cleaning something soon--ahem, as in my desk!).
Here is the cover of my upload:

I was really happy with the purchase I made of Chinese clip art. It makes it all look so polished. Here is a sample page of the kid-friendly fortunes I created:

Here is what the final envelope looked like:

So darn cute, right? 

You can get this fabulous file by clicking on the following link:

http://www.teachersnotebook.com/shop/teechurgr1

It's parent-teacher conference time. I'd better get back to work!
Be back sooner this time!

Meenal Parikh